The state's new Commissioner for Children, Liana Buchanan, experienced family violence when she was a young child. Photo: Simon Schluter

And Liana Buchanan knows first-hand what it's like to feel scared, and voiceless.

Ms Buchanan, the head of the Federation of Community Legal Centres, has been appointed as Victoria's new Commissioner for Children, a role most recently held by outspoken child advocate Bernie Geary.

And, for the first time, she has talked about her own experience of family violence when she was a young child.

Ms Buchanan, then five, and her mother fled her abusive father to live in women's refuges in her birthplace of Dundee in Scotland, in the 1970s.

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"The memory that stands out most strongly is the amount of support that workers - often volunteers - provided to the families. It showed me the power of grassroots support," says Ms Buchanan.

Her mother went on to work in refuges and the women's movement, and is now an Australian-based academic working in sociology and gendered violence.

"Being a little kid in women's refuges, even when mum was there as a worker, I saw many people who lived in fear and who got help from neither the justice system or broader services, says Ms Buchanan.

She and her mother moved to Australia when she was in high school, and she studied law at Adelaide University.

But it was working in community legal centres that she saw afresh how the justice system was unable to provide fair outcomes for women and children experiencing violence. This realisation prompted her to move into legal advocacy.

Ms Buchanan is a commissioner with the Victorian Law Reform Commission, has worked for the Department of Justice and the Equal Opportunity Commission.

There is no question we need to do better looking after vulnerable children.

Liana Buchanan

For the past three years she has been the head of the Federation of Community Legal Centres.

She is proud to have raised community understanding of the work legal centres do, including campaigning (successfully) to reverse the first round of federal government funding cuts to services.

When Bernie Geary retired as children's commissioner, he decried Victoria as a "dreadful parent", one that doesn't pay enough attention to how it treats hundreds of vulnerable children in its care.

"There is no question we need to do better looking after vulnerable children," Ms Buchanan said on Tuesday.

Far more is now understood about the effects of trauma on children, from sexual abuse inside and outside the family to family violence and toxic out-of-home care situations, she said.

Ms Buchanan says she will hold government and agencies to account, and also be an independent source of advice to them, informed by the voices of children and young people.

And the commission has a beefed-up role, with responsibility for a new centralised reporting scheme in Victoria.

This will require the centralised reporting of child abuse allegations by workers or volunteers in children's organisations, including out-of-home care, youth justice services, schools, and child care.

This was one of recommendations from the Betrayal of Trust inquiry, that looked at the handling of child abuse by religious and other organisations.